The buzz about this launch began as soon as its founder, Pierre-Henri Flamand, left Goldman Sachs’ proprietary trading desk in January last year.

Until then he headed the US bank’s principal strategies division – its largest internal hedge fund – and led a 30-strong team in the equities-focused division, which has now been wound down to comply with the Volcker Rule.

Flamand is joined by several former Goldman colleagues, including founding partners Ali Hedayat and Emmanuel Niogret; and Martina Slowey, who quit as head of European prime brokerage at UBS to come on board.

Edoma’s event-driven hedge fund launched in December with $1.2bn – the largest European launch of 2010 – and now, at $2.1bn, is closed to new money. Roughly 70% of the fund is invested in Europe, and the rest is invested in the US, Latin America and Canada. For Flamand, the big difference now is that rather than having one investor – Goldman Sachs – he has several. Several new funds run by former prop traders have hit the market, but Edoma has been the firm whose institutional infrastructure has set the standard for others.

Edoma beat off stiff competition from a raft of second-generation hedge fund managers – Thélème Partners, Ridley Park Capital and Warwick Capital Partners – and a new fund of funds firm: FQS Capital Management, founded by Robert Frey, a former managing director at Renaissance Technologies.